Where to live that's commutable to London with good schools

[rachelg1974]

Looking to move from London with my family (9 year old boy and 4 year old girl). I work in Kensington Olympia/ Hammersmith.

Looking for area with reasonable commute - an hour or so - and good state schools. I want to live in a town, not a village, with some life to it. In an ideal world, somewhere with culture and a liberal sensibility.

Will be looking for a 4/5 bedroom house. A big garden is a priority for my partner. We have about £1.4-£1.6m to spend.

As an example I quite liked Lewes but it's a bit too far for me.

Would love to hear any suggestions. Would consider south and west London but would look at north of London at a push, if it ticked most of the other boxes. Obviously we won't get everything we want so there will have to be compromise somewhere!

Thank you in advance!

Winchester. Plenty going on, good state schools, 1 hr to Waterloo and though v expensive your budget is fine.

Kingston, Surbiton, Walton on Thames

Cheam, Carshalton and Wallington have good schools and are safe and within a reasonable commute.

St Albans and Harpenden, excellent train link and lovely towns (though traffic not great 😬). In St Albans in particular you’d need to choose the house location carefully as the top secondaries have fairly small catchments.

Ps - the fast train from St Albans can get you to St Pancras in 20 mins which is pretty hard to beat 😃

Cambridge, or is that too far out?